


Reminiscence

by Qissakar



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa, महाभारत | Mahabharat (TV 2013)
Genre: Angst, Basically Cobbling Together Anything I Could Find About These Two With The Stuff In My Head, Canon Compliant, Character Death, F/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 12:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1744241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qissakar/pseuds/Qissakar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karna's dead. Vrishali grieves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reminiscence

**Author's Note:**

> Basically arose forever ago from me trying to get a coherent love story from scraps of this relationship in novels, different versions of the Mahabharat, Star Bharat, some stretchy secondhand deductions etc. So kind of canon compliant to everything but this relationship.  
> Real melancholy and cheesy (think tragic bollywood movie/tragic indian drama storyline)

She remembered the first time she saw him.

She had known his father of course, the strict and unyielding old charioteer and his sweet wife. She'd heard rumours as well, rumours of them finding a gold-clad baby boy by the river a long time ago. And she'd heard, as had most of the populace, of the goings-on at the palace. 

But the first time she'd met him, she hadn't known that this was Karna, the accidental king, one of the greatest archers in the world. She'd come to the river outside the city to get water for the week and had just balanced the pot of water on her head, ready to make the long trek home. She couldn't afford being late. Her brother had always been sour but had become even more so after father's death and wouldn't appreciate the delay. So naturally, an arrow had then struck her pot, and she stood there in dread in the moment between it shattering and her getting drenched. But it hadn't happened. A few seconds later, a second arrow had knocked the pot right off her head and it shattered at her feet.  
And then he had come running, his hair and clothes billowing behind him, an apology on his bloodred lips, before he came to a stop in front of her. Not knowing who he was,she had scolded him and given him a talking to that would rival even her brother. Had she known who he was, she probably would have apologised and gone on her way (for Vrishali was feisty, but not stupid enough to insult a king) and then he would not have had the delighted little smirk on his face that had melted her heart a little, and she would not have gruffly told him to just buy her a new pot. 

Or maybe they would have met the first time the way they met the second time, with him stopping her out-of-control chariot with his bare hands, and the concern that had marred his face the second before he returned to teasing her. His teasing had been awkward and stiff at first, until slowly his laugh became unfettered, the laugh she later learned he reserved for those closest to him; his foster parents, his children, and (she thought with a little pride) her. 

But it had become far more often in these later years for her to hear his other laughs; the forced laugh in those moments he silenced his conscience for his friend, and the other, more dangerous one: the laugh of a man who hungered for the glory denied him, for revenge upon those that had looked down on him for years, tinged with the bitterness of abandonment.

It was this last laugh she had heard right before the start of the war. As soon as she'd seen the Queen Mother of the Pandavas arriving at the gate, she had begun to hope again. They had shared a special connection after all, Kunti and her husband. Perhaps she would somehow talk him out of it. So Vrishali eavesdropped, and she learnt that her secret dreams of a simple life with her husband had never been possible, because he was the son of the Queen, the elder brother to the Pandavas and the offspring of the sun god. In her world, this meant the gods had him destined for glory, marked so that some stupid heroic ideal or the other could be passed down the generations. And she could not forgive Kunti for what she had allowed Karna to endure.

And then Karna revealed that he had known for some time, that he had been offered a way out but hadn't taken it and she could not forgive him either. She continued not forgiving him, as he made the vows that warriors were wont to; as he gave away the protective armour the sun god had bestowed on him;as he helped kill the child (for what else could a boy of sixteen be, even if he was married?) of the only man who could possibly kill him; as her sons were killed one by one in retribution. 

Vrishali had thought he understood the pain of the commoners, that he would never forget his roots, that his generosity arose from empathy. He struggled so that the elite would give the rest of them their dues, stop looking at them as grass to be trampled over,give their children the opportunities their aptitudes determined. Of course he had fought and won kingdoms for his friend, the crown prince of Hastinapur, Duryodhan but she had chalked that up to his stubborn loyalty. He could have prevented this madness (Vrishali felt sorry for the Pandavas and all that Duryodhan's insecurity and his conniving uncle made them go through, but she did not care for a war that would end in the destruction of so many and so much).She became unsure if he was the same man she had married. Or if he ever had been that man. If he knew he was one of them, then what was his excuse? She couldn't forgive the Pandavas for the death of her sons, but it was Karna she was angry at. In this war between kings, this war over kingdoms, his thirst for glory and validation had overtook him. 

So she had spoken sharply to him that fateful morning, laced every word with poison so that she broke the facade he had got into the habit of putting on. She had been so angry that she forgot to tell him to return. She knew it was a silly ritual, but it had usually helped keep her calm. Slowly the anger had ebbed away, and was replaced with fear when he didn't come back. She had come here this morning after the war, hoping against hope that somehow the men that brought back the injured had missed him. She found him instead as dead as every other man on this battlefield, his dark eyes with their thick lashes, wide open and glazed over. In the instant before her world stopped and became anguish, Vrishali's mind raced.

She remembered the first time she saw him.

 

She remembered the man who would do anything for the mother who took him in as one of her own, the mother whose love was so deep he never realized he was not of her womb.

 

She remembered skin that looked like it had forever toiled, bronze with lean muscle rippling underneath the surface. Skin that was surprisingly soft to the touch. Lips surprisingly soft to the touch. Thick, curly, black tresses that he knew she envied and never let a moment to tease her about it pass. Gentle hands that cupped her face, that swung their children high up so high that they thought they could fly, that caressed her hair the last time she saw him. Dark brown eyes that sometimes gave the impression of flecks of gold embedded in them.

 

She remembered a man who loved the people in his life so much that he let them choose to stay away, even though they too loved him, almost never holding a grudge. Except against the woman who gave him to a river.

(He had a few other grudges too, against Arjun, perhaps his only equal in their generation, the personification of all the discrimination against him. And against her born of fire, the woman Vrishali could not even be jealous of, so magnificent was she. The woman she had become almost friends with until Fate played a new gamble.The woman who had once insulted Karna for being lowborn and he had paid her back twenty fold, had sliced her pride and called her a whore and had done nothing to stop what happened next, and so now that woman's wrath had burnt even the son of the Sun).

 

She noticed Kunti and her sons crying beside Karna, Kunti having no doubt told the Pandavas everything. They stopped all of a sudden as she approached, chastened. She could have laughed right then at the irony of the high and mighty Pandavas, the husbands of the fiery Draupadi, shrinking from the daughter of a mere charioteer; at the irony of the man she was sure killed her husband, silently putting a comforting hand on her son's shoulders; at Draupadi who gave her a silent nod, her expression acknowledging what Vrishali had lost, mere hours after she had been drenched in the blood of her own sons. But then irony was how she met Karna in the first place, wasn't it?  

Vrishali thought all of this and she walked toward the shell that was once her husband. Once she reached him, she kneeled beside him because she didn't know what else to do. That was what her life had been like with Karna, even at their happiest. She hadn't known what to do about the situations they had found themselves in and neither had he, but they had tried their best. Until this war. Suddenly, everything inside of Vrishali became pain and she wept, her wails mingling with those of the thousands of other women around her.

* * *

It was when Vrishali's tears had almost run out that she noticed. There had been a bright glare in her peripheral vision for awhile now, but she had ignored it, angry that the sun should shine in her time of grief. But she now noticed the faint outline of a figure, a figure she would recognize anywhere. So she ran towards it, even as she heard the renewed wails of Kunti and the Pandavas. Draupadi had now joined them.They were calling out her name, but she didn't care anymore.

Sure enough, it was him. He had changed though. He'd gotten his armour back somehow and he seemed years younger. Younger, in fact, than when they had met, and there was something else as well. 

He was carefree.

But it was Karna alright, with his teasing smirk and sheepish grin all rolled into one. There was the silent apology in his dark eyes. So Vrishali took the outstretched hand in front of her, took one last glance back at her son, and ran towards the sunrise.


End file.
